A coin unearthed on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya suggests that Chinese explorers may have sailed to Africa in the Middle Ages, beating the Europeans who went on to colonise the continent by almost 100 years.

Britain was still celebrating the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt when a eunuch captain, Zheng He, led the largest fleet the world had ever seen to claim “tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas”. One of his vessels is thought to have been shipwrecked near Manda, a medieval port close to the border with Somalia, where the coin was discovered last year.